Florence Dobrow

Helped build senior, sports centers

Florence Dobrow, who helped bring a senior center and a sports complex to Fair Lawn, died Monday. She was 93.

Mrs. Dobrow, a Democrat and a prolific vote-getter, won her first Fair Lawn Council race in 1974. She served for 27 years, through changes in the borough's form of government, and became Fair Lawn's first woman mayor in July 1981 when council colleagues selected her for a one-year term. By then she had celebrated the opening of the Fair Lawn Senior Center on Gardiner Road. cq The councilwoman spearheaded its construction.

In later years, she secured funding for an athletic complex with facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, football and tennis. The complex bears her name.

Mrs. Dobrow also focused on beautification  appropriate for a founder of the Fair Lawn Garden Club. Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, in a congressional resolution honoring her, noted that Mrs. Dobrow created "Flossie's cq Posse" to enlist townsfolk in making sure shrubs and bushes were properly tended.

"Flossie was everyone's friendly neighbor," said Marvin Levitt, who managed Mrs. Dobrow's campaigns. "She was the unique public servant who never wanted to receive anything, but only wanted to do things for the town."

State Sen. Robert M. Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, served on the Borough Council with Mrs. Dobrow.

"Flossie was my mentor," Gordon said Tuesday. "She was one of the first persons I met in Fair Lawn politics when I got out of grad school and she welcomed me into the Fair Lawn Independent Democrats club."

Gordon said Mrs. Dobrow was an effective councilwoman because "she never lost her sense of outrage."

"I recall one work session where we were talking about a labor negotiation and considering a settlement to a contract, and Flossie said, 'What are we thinking? We can't support a contract of that size. Have we forgotten about the taxpayers?'

"Flossie was always conscious of the taxpayers," Gordon said. "She always reminded us of why we were there."

Mrs. Dobrow was visible around town, in no small measure because of the oversize tricycle she pedaled. She spurned the convertibles other politicians rode in the Memorial Day parade in favor of her tricycle.

"People knew her for that," said her son, Ira. "Whether she rode it to be closer to the people, or just for the hell of it, I don't know."

Florence Dobrow was a cousin of Abe Stark, a Brooklyn clothier who put the "Hit Sign, Win Suit" sign under the outfield scoreboard at Ebbets Field. The sign made Stark so famous that he entered politics, rising to New York City Council president and Brooklyn borough president.

Mrs. Dobrow's own political career sprang not from an advertising ploy but from her involvement in the League of Women Voters.

Ira Dobrow said his mother had a calm confidence about her.

"You couldn't get Mom angry," he said. "She just wasn't interested in being angry. It was a waste of her energy."

Mrs. Dobrow, who had a business career as a sales executive with Pedeco Printing Co., was inducted into the New Jersey State League of Municipalities' Elected Officials Hall of Fame.

She moved to the Boston area in 2004 and is survived by her son, of Brookline, Mass., and a grandson. Her husband, Saul, died in 1987.

Services will be Thursday at 10 a.m. at Louis Suburban Chapel, Fair Lawn. Burial will be in Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus.

E-mail: levin@northjersey.com